Hello people, 

So last post I mentioned Project Week which this post is going to be all dedicated to.

As I mentioned before for my Project Week I went for 6 days to the Capital of Serbia, Belgrade which is an amazing city in the north of Serbia which means from Mostar there’s a bus ride of about 12 hours. 

(Vanja from BiH)

So on Sunday evening we (Me, Harisa, Selma, Hana, Kata and Dino from BiH, Amaranta from Chile, Oristja from Albania, Marta from Portugal, Carmi my co-year from Israel and our Supervisor Alessandro our maths teacher from Italy) left Mostar around 8pm and the next morning at 8 we arrived in Belgrade after a horrible bus ride, the driver stopping every hour for a break and getting a horrible neck ache from trying to get a bit of sleep.

We arrived and it took us about an hour dragging around our suitcases in the cold and rain to find our hostel but we eventually got there, took a quick, nice, much needed nap then headed to the centre of Refugee Aid Serbia the organisation that we were volunteering for. When we first got there I got a shock, I’m not going to lie it was a very shocking site, it is a little centre in an industrial area close to the park where the refugees stay in their tents, it has a small corner for clothes, one for shoes, another for food and hygiene products, a small tea/warm milk/cookies stand and a bathroom but that was not the shocking thing, the shocking thing was the tens of young men with shredded clothes, shoes two sizes bigger than their own, without any socks in the freezing cold  queuing up to get warm with a nice cup of tea that sight made all the numbers and statistics the media talks about real it made the huge “refugee crisis” that everyone talks about a concrete actual living thing.

(Refugee Aid Serbia centre)

The first day there weren’t much people because it was cold and raining and they preferred to stay in their tents warming up together so me and a few of the girls went to the back where they stored clothes and sorted them through. After a few hours we were finished and decided to go back.

At night we went out a bit to explore Belgrade which was very nice, Belgrade is a very beautiful but strange city it is a combination of a classical European city and a classical scarred by the war, ruins full Balkan city which makes it very special. Pictures are the best way to show you the beauty of Belgrade so…

Next day we woke up early and went to the centre again, this time I went to work in the hygiene products stand and while sorting clothes is also important and very much needed to get the proper clothes for the refugees, handing out the hygiene products felt more useful somehow and I had more of a contact with them which was nice because I could put faces to the people that I’m helping and sometimes even chat with them. One of the things that surprised me the most was how humble these people were, if I would hand someone two soaps they would give me back one and say one is fine, if I offered them shampoo and they already had some they would refuse it and when they asked me for something that we didn’t have (usually razors and hair gel) they would smile and thank me and in my head I’m saying “No, don’t thank me I could helped more but I can’t!”. 

That day one of the most amazing things I will never forget happened, most of the refugees that we had over that week were from Afghanistan so I couldn’t help much with my Arabic but that second a Syrian family came and my friends called me over to help I started speaking with the mother who had a baby girl and three little boys and helping her with whatever she needs then I asked her what’s her daughter’s name and she says “Malak”, my face just breaks into a huge smile that was one of the happiest moments of my week, it sounds very silly I know but it was just so nice to hear she that beautiful baby girl has the same name as me.

During the next days we kept going every morning to the centre and helping out there, everyday more people were coming and I felt like I helped more and more people everyday even if I only did something as simple as giving them a toothbrush whenever they thanked me and smiled I would just feel pure joy. There were some Syrian families that I helped but not much as most people were from Afghanistan but there was this little boy that I will never forget, we helped him get clothes, food, some tea I chatted and laughed with him for a bit then I noticed that he’s alone so I asked him where are your parents and he replies “Back home, in Syria” and my heart just breaks and I remember how extreme this issue is, how real it is and this guy was not the only one who had a hard, tragic road to get to Europe, people told us they were jailed, got their money stolen, walked in forests for days, had no food and drink for days, people are doing all of this to escape the fear back in their countries, the danger to get a better life for themselves and a future for their children, one women told me “We didn’t come here for ourselves, we are too old. We came here for our children, back in Iraq they have no future, here we can give them a chance.”

On the third day Marta told me she met someone who is starting a new NGO and he’s making sandwiches and going to the park, handing them out to the refugees then taking some footballs,volleyballs, a drum… and hanging out with the refugees, dancing, playing, getting to know them… She asked me if I want to join and I said sure why not, so we went and met Josh from the US he’s the person responsible for this project, he’s an amazing guy who has given a lot for these refugees and has been going for over a month straight to the park and is trying to do so much for them to have a few hours of fun and normality everyday which is for me as important as handing out clothes, food…

So we made the sandwiches then went to the park, handed them out and then started the actual fun. Those few hours that I spent in the park everyday were one of the most amazing hours of my project week and even my life, that experience was just life changing, even with the language barrier we got so close to some of these guys, we danced, we made drawing together, played volleyball, got married a few times (yes Afghanis have a thing for getting married hahah), I even spent about two hours just throwing a ball back and forth with a little 3 year old kid and they were one of the best 2 hours of my life.

(From left to right, Dino, Josh, me, Amaranta, Marta, 

Kata, Carmi, a volunteer from Spain and in the bottom

a volunteer from Spain and Serbia)

I can surely say my project week was very successful, I want to thank Selma our project week leader who organised everything so well, Alessandro my favourite Italian, the amazing people at Refugee Aid Serbia, Josh who is making an amazing thing and all the volunteers I met from all around the world, Spain, Bangladesh, Serbia, Chile, The Netherlands. And finally I want to thank all the amazing refugees that I met that even through all their pain and loss are still hanging on, smiling, playing, enjoying life, Thank you guys for giving me an amazing week that changed my life forever.

Peace out.